Jury: Ex-officer should serve 2 1/2 years for manslaughter
(AP) — A jury recommended 2 1/2 years in prison for a white former police officer convicted of voluntary manslaughter on Thursday in the shooting death of an unarmed black man who had been accused of shoplifting.
The ex-officer, Stephen Rankin, shot 18-year-old William Chapman in the face and chest outside a Wal-Mart store last year after a security guard called police to go after the young man.
Morales asked jurors to give him the maximum, while defense attorney James Broccoletti argued that no amount of jail time would bring Chapman back to life.
Rankin, who was fired from the Portsmouth police force after being indicted, had already killed another unarmed suspect, four years earlier, and many in the mostly black city of 100,000 saw his trial as a chance for accountability as police shootings continue around the country.
On-duty officers kill about 1,000 suspects a year in the United States, but only 74 have been charged since 2005, said Philip Stinson, a criminal justice professor at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.
Paul Akey, a construction worker who was nearby, said Chapman "went after the officer with throwing fists, and it looked like he knocked a Taser out of the officer's hands."
Earlier Thursday in Baltimore, a 15-year veteran officer was convicted of assault for shooting an unarmed burglary suspect in 2014, and his police commissioner was taking steps to fire him.